


sugar substitute

by annejumps



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Charles in a Wheelchair, Financial Domination, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 06:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5656612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annejumps/pseuds/annejumps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik thinks "financial domination" means someone will force him to be responsible with his spending. Charles thinks it's a fun way to get presents from a stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sugar substitute

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Xmen_Ongoing](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Xmen_Ongoing) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Erik is looking for someone to financially 'dom' him online. Charles thinks it sounds like easy money - boss a guy around and demand that he spend money and get a bunch of cool shit in return? Without doing anything sexy? Awesome! 
> 
> (Erik thinks financial domination is about forcing him to be responsible with his money...Charles thinks it's all about getting expensive stuff from an absent sugar daddy)
> 
> It goes well for a while. Charles starts to feel really attracted to Erik and wants to meet with him but Erik is oddly insistent that Charles is not a prostitute. After a few weeks (or months?) Erik reveals he's about to be homeless because he's been spending all his money on Charles - he's not rich, afterall. He didn't mean to get so far in but he loves to see Charles happy. 
> 
> The happy ending could be that Charles perhaps is rich? I'd just like to see clueless boys falling in love.

“I’m sorry, what?” Charles shook his head. “I can’t possibly have understood that correctly -- you’re telling me you literally order men to buy you expensive things, and not only do they buy them, they thank you?”

Emma smiled, and tugged on one of her large diamond stud earrings, the acquisition of which she’d just been telling Charles about. “That is exactly what I’m saying.”

Charles drummed his fingers on the arms of his wheelchair. “Right.” He looked around the dining area to make sure no other students were within earshot, and then leaned in close to Emma. “How do I sign up for this?”

She laughed. _Sugar, you can always talk to me this way if you don’t want to be heard._

Charles shook his head. “I’m trying not to use that here. I’m trying to be normal, Emma.”

Her smile grew cold. _There’s no sense in that. You’re not normal, Charles. Don’t try to be. It doesn’t look well on you._

Before Charles could say anything, she stood up. “I’ll email you the details on how to get in on this,” she said, shouldering an expensive-looking white leather purse laden with gleaming hardware. She winked. “I think you’d enjoy it.”

\-------

Erik looked around his dorm room, thoughtful, trying to think of how to phrase his search on their school bulletin board.

“‘Financial instruction,’” he said aloud.

“What?” his roommate said from the kitchen, within close earshot in their decidedly cramped dorm.

“Nothing, Janos. I’m trying to find information on how to get my finances in order.” Erik sighed. He’d been listlessly spending money on random things he saw -- a sort of retail therapy, no doubt -- and couldn’t make himself stop. The brief satisfaction he felt at buying something new was gone as soon as he cluttered up his room with it, but he couldn’t quench the impulse. And it was silly, because he didn’t really have all that much money to play with.

“Try ‘financial discipline,’” Janos suggested, with a chuckle, as he walked by Erik’s room with the carton of orange juice.

“Hey, don’t drink directly from that. What have we talked about?” Erik said, not really caring, as he typed in the words “financial discipline.”

“Need guidance in spending your money? Want to make us feel good because you’ve been oh-so-bad? Let us dominate your financial will for a win-win situation.”

A bit oddly phrased, but it was the only result, and worth a shot. Erik clicked on the Contact form and filled out his information.

Hours later, he received an email in response. “Would you prefer male or female?” it asked.

Very odd question, Erik thought. He flipped a coin, using his powers. “Male,” he replied.

\-------

“Hello, Erik,” Charles said aloud as he typed up the email to his very first… client. Emma hadn’t given him much guidance, apparently thinking the entire situation was self-explanatory -- you told the client how to spend his money, and made sure that included gifts for yourself -- but he decided the first thing to do was to learn what sort of things Erik liked to buy for people. 

“Tell me, what do you get off most on buying, big spender?” Then he deleted that. Probably didn’t sound dominating enough. He wondered if he could just order this Erik to PayPal him fifty bucks. On the other hand, that might be coming on too strong. 

“Surrender your finances to me,” he wrote instead. These sorts of men probably liked that sort of language. “I will decide how you spend your money.”

He clicked Send.

A few minutes later, Erik replied. “All right,” the email said. “What do I need to do?”

Charles thought. “Send me fifty dollars via PayPal,” he answered. A few minutes later, another email indicated Erik had done exactly that.

Charles sent him a link to a Brooks Brothers cashmere sweater he’d been coveting, but hadn’t gotten around to actually buying. It was not exactly a big-ticket item, but not cheap, either. “Buy me this,” he typed, including the address to a box he rented and occasionally had things shipped to.

Some time later, Erik forwarded him the receipt for the purchase.

\-------

Erik wasn’t sure why he did it. All he knew was that he did indeed get a rush from ordering a cashmere sweater for a total stranger.

By now it was clear that this wasn’t exactly what he thought it was when he’d searched for a financial advisor. He wasn’t that stupid. But then, he had just bought a cashmere sweater for a stranger, so maybe he was. The thing was, it didn’t seem to matter. He liked the idea of doing what this person told him to do with his money. He liked the thought of them getting this present at his expense.

It felt like he deserved it, somehow. Hadn’t he been terrible with his spending before? Why would it be any worse this way, when at least someone was enjoying what he was buying? He clearly had no business making his own buying decisions.

Charles, the “advisor,” asked him what he liked spending money on. Games, books, clothes -- Erik listed all the things he’d bought and found himself not enjoying. Charles ordered him to stop buying those things, and to do what Charles said instead. And Erik agreed.

\-------

This was too good to be true. Charles had a rich man showering him with presents.

He had to be rich, of course -- no one in his right mind would be broke and spending this much, on Charles or anyone else. That helped assuage the nagging guilt Charles felt as he surveyed his new sweaters, wallet, satchel, antique chess board, and set of whiskey tumblers, all received in the past week and a half. Why should he feel guilty, after all? 

Erik was charming, too. A bit blunt, and Charles had the feeling not everyone would find him charming, but, well. Charles always did like the terse types. He and Erik exchanged numbers, so that they could text and Erik could ask Charles if he was allowed to buy things for himself, like books and shoes. Charles would decide yes or no, and Erik seemed to like that. Charles wasn’t sure Erik was literally following his directive, but it pleased them both to pretend he was, apparently.

Charles grew up wealthy, but it wasn’t as though he’d had a happy family life -- far from it, actually -- and he’d been glad to get away from all that, to university. He had resources, so it wasn’t as though he really needed these gifts -- and he’d even said as much to Erik, saying he didn’t need these things but he wanted them and that was why Erik should give them to him (that seemed to be how this worked) but he had to admit, silly as it was, he was moved by them. He could imagine them being given to him by a lover, instead of this stranger who got off by sending other strangers presents.

Because frankly, Charles’ love life wasn’t exactly vibrant. Not only was he busy studying, most people didn’t want to go to the trouble of being with someone in a wheelchair. On top of that, Charles knew his psionic mutation, which he could only hide for so long, would scare people off. Would probably scare off his sugar daddy, truth be told. Yes, it was best that they weren’t meeting in person.

When Erik asked for a picture of him, three weeks into their arrangement, Charles sent him a picture of himself from the shoulders up. He never mentioned anything about being a mutant, of course, or about his chair -- there was no need for Erik to know either of those things, really. 

Erik had told him he was cute, and then sent a picture of himself. If this was really Erik, he was very handsome. But then, it could have been just something he’d grabbed off the internet. From the start, Charles preferred not thinking of Erik as a real, flesh-and-blood person -- he wanted to think of this all as a formal transaction. 

That said, now that he knew what Erik looked like -- and after a few more pictures were sent to him, it became more and more likely that this really was Erik -- as well as what he sounded like in emails and texts, Charles was more and more fond of him. He was beginning to feel the urge to meet him in person.

“Would you like to see how I look in this blue sweater you bought me?” he asked via text one night after a few drinks -- alone, in his dorm. He didn’t often ask Erik if he’d like something -- he usually just ordered him to do or not do things.

Erik replied that he did, and asked for a picture. Charles had sent him pictures before of himself reacting to receiving something bought for him by Erik.

“No,” Charles replied, “I mean in person.”

Erik took a long time to reply. “I don’t need to see you in person,” the text read.

Charles felt stung, and didn’t reply further. He’d been close to not even caring that Erik would see him in his chair and possibly reject him, and now he’d been gearing himself up for nothing.

“Can I at least call you, and hear your voice?” he asked. 

And a no to that as well.

\-------

It had been hard saying that he didn’t want to see Charles in person, because he actually did -- it just seemed like everything would fall apart and become sordid if they met. They hadn’t been making this overtly sexual, even though Charles was very attractive, and Erik was concerned that meeting Charles in person would lead to something more like prostitution than he was interested in or comfortable with. This was already dicey enough, and with Erik having only recently had his heart broken by his ex-girlfriend, Magda, he wasn’t eager to be head over heels anytime soon.

All that said, Charles was really cute…. 

When Erik’s credit card payment was due, he stared at the amount on the bill for a long time. When all his bills were factored in, he definitely didn’t have that money in his checking account. Yet somehow he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry with Charles. Erik had known he would eventually be held accountable for everything he was buying for Charles. 

He texted Charles. “I’m sorry, but I have to stop doing this.”

\-------

Charles stared at his mobile for a few moments, puzzled. Had he done something wrong, something that had caused this to lose its appeal for Erik? If Charles had been allowing himself to read minds, he’d have tried to read Erik’s, but then, he wasn’t sure where exactly he was.

“Why?” he asked.

The reply took a while in coming. “I’m broke,” it said. 

Charles stared at his mobile again, mouth dropped open. He thought of the sweaters, shoes, laptop, iPad, chess board, tumblers, decanter, books, wallet, jackets, and more that he’d accumulated from Erik over the past month, and felt wracked with guilt.

“That’s dreadful,” he texted. “I’m sorry, I thought you were rich.”

That perhaps looked a bit rude, Charles realized after he sent it. 

To his shock, his mobile rang, and it was Erik calling.

“No, Charles, I’m not rich,” a faintly accented, sonorous baritone informed him, with an edge of anger.

“Hang on, then why did you buy all those things for me?” Charles asked, incredulous.

Erik paused. “At first, I thought you were a financial advisor.”

Charles laughed -- he couldn’t help it. But before he could ask why Erik kept buying him things even after presumably realizing he wasn’t an advisor, Erik had ended the call.

“Please, Erik,” he texted. “Let me meet you in person and give you the things back.”

Erik didn’t reply for a long time, long enough that Charles began to despair of him ever replying. “Keep them,” he finally said. “They made you happy.”

“Because I figured you could afford it!” Charles replied. “I’m not happy if you’re destitute.”

“Why, without money am I no longer of interest to you?” Erik replied.

“Please, Erik, let us meet in person. I’m not explaining myself properly and everything’s getting muddled.”

\-------

Erik sat, fidgeting, in a corner of the coffee shop, scanning the doorway when he sensed a wheelchair approaching outside. He didn’t think anything of it; his power just happened to notice things like that. He was waiting for Charles, as he’d agreed to meet him here.

When the wheelchair rolled in, however, he recognized the occupant’s face -- it was Charles.

Just as the shock -- not at Charles being in a wheelchair, but at understanding Charles was in fact here in person and was looking for him -- hit him, Charles looked up, as if he’d heard Erik’s mental surprise, and met his gaze. Looking contrite, pale, he rolled over.

“Erik,” he said, “I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you knew what you were getting into.”

“Do you do this often, then?” Erik bit out. “Are you a seasoned professional? Is this how you make your pocket money?”

Charles frowned. “No, actually,” he said, shrugging a bit, ducking his head. “You’re my first client. Ever.”

Erik stared.

“And probably the last,” Charles added hastily. “I don’t seem to be very good at this,” he continued, with a bashful smile. His eyes were very blue in person.

“Neither am I,” Erik said. He sighed. “I think I thought I was helping you. If my buying habits didn’t make me feel good, at least they made someone happy.”

“Well. As I hinted….” Charles cleared his throat. “I… come from a wealthy background.” He was turning pink. “I was serious when I said I really didn’t need those things.”

Erik frowned. “Then why did you do it?”

“I….” Charles glanced around, then lowered his voice. “I think I liked the attention. It’s… often the case that someone like me gets ignored.” He gestured to the chair.

Erik stared, but not at the chair. “What? You’re gorgeous.”

Charles barked out a surprised laugh, turning pinker still. “Yes, well. I…. All right.” He ran a hand through his thick brown hair, and seemed to regain his composure. “Erik, let me repay you for everything and we’ll forget this ever happened. We’ll be on even footing again, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“No,” Erik said.

“No?” Charles echoed, blue eyes worried. “Please, Erik, I’d feel so much better if you’d let me--”

“Yes, you can repay me,” Erik said. “But I don’t want you to leave me alone.”

Charles sagged a little in relief. “I don’t really want to leave you alone, either,” he admitted. “Well, you know what I mean. I think.”

“I do,” Erik said. “But there’s something you need to know,” he said, lifting the sugar shaker on his table by its metal lid. “I’m a mutant.” He braced himself for Charles’ rejection. If that was how it was going to be, Erik would live with it.

Instead, unexpectedly, Charles beamed. _So am I, my friend_ , said a voice directly into Erik’s mind. It was almost enough to make him drop the shaker, but he recovered.

\-------

“Honestly, Charles,” Emma sighed, shaking her head, “only you could go into a sugar daddy situation and end up paying the guy back.”

“He did let me keep the stuff,” Charles pointed out. “And furthermore, I’ll have you know, I might no longer order Erik to buy me things, but I do order him around in bed.” He smiled. It was hard for him to hide how happy Erik made him now that they’d decided to make their relationship the usual kind. 

Emma tilted her head, considering. “Well, there’s that, at least.” She smiled back. “I’d hate to think I had no influence on you at all, sugar.” _And he knows you’re a telepath?_

 _Yes, he does_ , Charles answered, smile widening with pride. _He’s a mutant as well. We might make you come to our mutant rights meetings._

“I don’t think so,” Emma scoffed aloud, standing. “I’m not really a joiner. Anyway,” she said, bending to air-kiss his cheek, “I’m glad you’re happy. You deserve happiness.”

“I’m sure you’re not above taking some credit for leading me to it,” he said fondly, watching her leave in her white leather boots.

He picked up his mobile and texted Erik, in high spirits as he did. “I demand that you let me suck your cock tonight.”

The reply was immediate. “Far be it from me to disobey an order like that.”


End file.
